Even though Clear Creek is a bit swollen, most of Golden is essentially safe from the flooding. Our home is up on a hill, so the chance of a flood hitting our neighborhood is pretty minimal. There is a part of town, Coal Creek, that suffered quite a lot of damage, though. And another nearby river, Bear Creek in Morrison, had about nine feet of water flowing, indicating it’s near flood levels (that isn’t at flood levels??)

It’s nothing like what’s unfortunately happening in Boulder, which is one of my favorite towns on the Front Range. It’s tragic that this beautiful place is being destroyed by walls of water, mud and debris. Even worse, three people have died, two in Boulder and one in Colorado Springs, but 20 people have been reported missing. It’s scary.

We’re also getting frequent Emergency Alert System announcements through TV, radio and the cell phone, and that’s a little disconcerting.

This is what it looked like near downtown Denver, at a place called Confluence Park, where Cherry Creek (normally a concrete channel with half-foot deep stream and an elevated bike path) flows into the Platte River:

One thing I wish I had captured on video was the blooming idiot who was trying to paddleboard down the Platte, moments before I took these pictures below. I think I was too stunned that someone would even try such a dangerous and ridiculous thing to turn on my camera.

Here are some from the Platte’s banks:

Flooded Platte River and Speer Street BridgeThe confluence of Cherry Creek and Platte RiverWalkway underwater on the Platte River, Denver

OK, maybe even I was a little idiotic to go so close to flooding water like this. But in a decade-plus I’ve been in Colorado, I’ve never seen water like this after a rainstorm.

We have a shop-worn saying here: If you don’t like the weather, just a wait a couple of hours.

Until I take my next trip – at which time, I’m not yet sure – I’ll be looking back on some travels I’ve taken in recent years. But I want to draw from the local well once again, with a local event. Also, forgive me for not posting last week. Two tight copywriting deadlines, JRS’s birthday and the first week of school made for a tough schedule to fit in my blogging.

For the past two years in late August, Colorado has hosted a professional cycling race called the USA Pro Challenge. Think of it as a mini Tour de France, with just six days of stages instead of three weeks’ worth. The cyclists who partcipate come from all over the world, but only Americans have won each of the three races each year. Not that I mind. I’m really not that much into pro cycling. I don’t know much about sprints, pelotons, and all that racing jargon. But when this race comes around, I do become a little interested.

Actually, I think I’m more interested in seeing the pristine natural scenery our state is blessed with, which is what I see when the stages hit the mountains. I never get tired of appreciating the beauty of Colorado, wherever they happen to go, whether it’s the rugged fourteeners near Independence Pass or the narrow winding river canyons.

It’s undoubtedly fun when the races have come to Golden, as they’ve done for the last two races. This year, they skipped our fair town. I don’t know why, other than the race organizers wanted to allow other cities to host a stage.

But when they did come last year, RAS and his friend and I headed to downtown and became part of the scene. Despite the crowds, we enjoyed the energy that radiated from this event. That is what I’m sharing below with my photos. Of course, we didn’t get to experience it close-up this time around. Sure, we could’ve headed to Denver, where they hold the last stage of the race every year. But we didn’t care THAT much about it.

Still, if it returns here next year, we’ll be right there to watch in person again.

George Hincapie, who’s now retired from pro racing, getting requests for his autograph.

About a year ago, I posted about how my RAS and NLS went tubing down Clear Creek, which flows through downtown Golden. The water then was quite low. So much that the experience was less than ideal. He tried to make her ride almost the whole length of the river without holding on to her tube. That made her scared, frozen and miserable downriver when I picked them up. And my younger one, with her overenthusiastic stepdad and pretty rigid comfort zone, swore she’d never do it again.

I guess her experience was worse than this…

Well, she did last week… and loved it. All it took was a little patience and gradual exposure to the chilly waters, and me leading the way. Now I’m the one who was reconsidering ever doing it again. That’s because when I was trying to pull over our tubes at a certain designated point from the river bank, I didn’t realize that the depth was greater than my height. My head went completely under, and for one millisecond I couldn’t breathe.

Most of this section of Clear Creek doesn’t clear my kneetops, so this came as a very unwelcome surprise. Also, thanks to the steady monsoon rainstorms that have barreled through the state the past few months, we’ve had a lot more water flowing here.

But as with every August, we notice a chill in the air arriving at night. The inclination to throw the down comforter before bedtime gains momentum, even if the days are still harshly sunny and broiling hot. I start to think about wearing jeans instead of shorts. Football talk becomes way more common on the news, especially here in crazy Bronco fans country. And the anticipation of school starting revs up, as evidenced by our last night’s visits to NLS’s new fifth grade classroom and JRS’s completely new and overwhelming experience at middle school.

Having these thoughts yesterday, I decided to take some season’s end pictures of my adopted hometown, Golden, as I went on my run (I apologize for the fuzziness in some of these photos. I decided to use my new iPod touch, and I’m still getting used to how it focuses):

These signs have lately popped up around the creek area, in an effort to keep people in line, I’m guessing (yes, that’s me in the sign’s reflection – I had no idea they were that shiny) Clever title, don’t ya think? 🙂

Home of the most famous brewed Colorado product. And see? It is made with “pure” Rocky Mountain water, just like they advertise.

The Washington Street bridge, heading into town.

Everyone in the creek!

The interactive part of the Golden History Museum. I was hoping to take some pics of the chickens in the pen here, but they were smart and stayed inside their coop. Unlike me.

My favorite part of the Clear Creek trail – a shaded dirt path alongside the river that’s only about a half-mile.

Trail’s end. No, it’s not much to look at…

…but a lot of this area is.

The trout grow pretty big here.

Our signature arch.

We have about a dozen of these bronze statues along the creek banks, including those oversized fish. This is probably the best one of the bunch.

So as you can see, there’s more to Golden than just being the home of weak, mass-produced beer. Come and see for yourself, and we’ll show you around.

This post would’ve come yesterday, after a two-week break. But thanks to problems with my hosting company, both this site and my other site, Schultze Copywriting, were out of commission. AGGH!

As my IT hubby says, this happens, as he knows all too well. So I’m trying to be compassionate and think about those poor system admin guys at Bluehost tearing their hair out trying to get everyone’s websites back online all day yesterday. They got enough flack, I’m sure, from all sides.

It doesn’t mean I wasn’t upset by the whole thing, though. I certainly was. But today is another day for them and for me. Nothing like a fresh start, right?

So how do you come down from the high of being in Switzerland and Italy for more than two weeks? Why, go camping of course!

Part of the reason I haven’t written here in the last two weeks is because we’ve gone up to the Rockies during the weekends, leaving on Friday morning, which is my normal posting day. And no, we’re not the techno-philes that you might assume we are and don’t have wi-fi in our camper. In a way, getting away up into the mountains, just out of range from most cell and 4G towers, gives me ideal downtime from the demands of internet communication and easing off from my dependency on technology.

The first weekend, RAS and I went to Guanella Pass, staying near a dispersed site favored by campers with horses. One morning, they had some unexpected visitors…free-range cattle.

I have to say, it was a little scary to have these surprisingly large creatures cross your path especially when there a few calves in the bunch. I’m not sure if mother cows are as super-protective of their young as most other animals are.

Our home away from home…

Guanella Pass is in the vicinity of two fourteeners, Mt. Evans and Mt. Bierstadt. Those are the 54 mountains in Colorado over 14,000 feet in elevation. Here’s the latter from a hike we took one afternoon:

No, we didn’t make it to the top 🙂

But I did manage to sprain my ankle pretty well. Encountering a nice wide rock on Gomer Creek, RAS hopped from the bank to this “island” in the middle of a rapid. I was pretty confident I could make the leap too, and initially I was glad I did, because I was able to take some terrific photos.

Trying to get back to the banks, I jumped back and severely twisted the left. It’s a miracle I made the three miles back to the truck and to camp without having to go to the hospital. Suffering for my art, I know…

The next week, we headed up to the Collegiate Peaks area with our friends. There aren’t many pictures here, because it rained about 60-70% of the time. And photos of rain-soaked campers just doesn’t make for good travel viewing. It even rained while we went rafting down the Arkansas River and into Browns Canyon. It even downpoured when we went to the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs later on to swim (really warm up). Luckily we all had a great time.

But here are pics I managed to snap before the deluge, near Browns Creek:

As wonderful as camping can be, I’m really missing Italy right now. But the likelihood of our returning soon is quite small. Besides, RAS and I already thinking about next summer’s big trip, this time with the kids.

A cruise to Alaska or going back East to DC and New York are the leading prospects. I’ll try to lobby for Big Island myself, but he’s not quite ready to return to Hawaii just yet. What?! Who in world wouldn’t be “ready” for Hawaii?? Yeah, he’s a little weird in that way.

Our experience with Colorado’s State Parks is pretty limited. We’ve only visited one other twice in the last six years – Golden Gate Canyon, located about thirty minutes northwest of where we live on a wicked ribbon of curvy and steep mountain highway. One visit we took the old pop-up trailer, and the other was staying at the Harmsen Ranch house with RAS’s family.

He doesn’t think camping in the state parks is the real deal. Because everyone is required to be on the campgrounds and not allowed to do dispersed, or finding your own site, you’re stuck with dozens of other campers. They can range in ages from quiet senior citizens to rowdy college-age and everyone in between. Each site has its own metal fire bowl, picnic benches and gravel pens if you want to pitch a tent. Most sites have an electrical outlet so you can run your microwave and satellite TV. There’s also facilities – not just pit toilets, but bathrooms with sinks and hot water showers, plus coin-op washer and dryer machines. In other words, luxury in the wilderness, and therefore, not camping.

So our expectations (well, really more his) for Mueller State Park were right in line with this notion, and it was just as expected. But we weren’t ready for the pleasant surprise that awaited us…sweeping natural beauty.

Mueller is arguably the most popular of the all the State Parks in Colorado. Summer weekend reservations for campsites fill up months in advance, and it’s not hard to see why. Situated on a plateau and surrounded by rolling hills, the park lies directly west of Pikes Peak. Most of the terrain is alpine forest, with a mixture of semi-arid grasslands and large rock formations. Even though there’s over 130 campsites, they are spaced out well enough so you don’t feel like you can simultaneously touch the walls of your RV and your neighbors. Finally, the best feature about Mueller is the extensive network of 33 well-marked trails.

But be warned if you bring your furry friends…even though park allows pets, they can’t go on the trails, due to the abundant wildlife present. In the light of day, we couldn’t find any of the elk, mule deer, beavers or black bears mentioned in the park literature. Perhaps we would’ve had a better chance at seeing them if we had arisen early or ventured out at twilight.

Here are some early morning pictures near our campsite:

We then went to the visitors center, where more awesome views awaited: